System and method for evaluating and/or monitoring effectiveness of on-line advertising

ABSTRACT

A system and a method for measuring and monitoring effectiveness of on-line advertising are provided. The system and method provide a code attached to, for example, an advertising banner of a company that may advertise goods and/or services of the company. The code provides a signal to a server when the banner is viewed on a computer of a user. Cookie data is transferred by the server to the computer of the user providing information related to viewing of the advertising banner. Surveys are further presented to users to obtain information related to the effectiveness of the advertising for both exposed users and control users.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the priority benefit of Nyhan et al., U.S.patent application Ser. No. 11/348,717, filed on Feb. 7, 2006, now U.S.Pat. No. 7,194,425 which is a continuation of, and claims prioritybenefit, of Nyhan et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/349,650filed on Jul. 8, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,010,497 entitled “System AndMethod For Evaluating And/Or Monitoring Effectiveness of On-LineAdvertising, ”the contents of all referenced patent applications areincorporated herein by reference in their entirety, including anyreferences therein.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to a system and a method formeasuring and/or monitoring effectiveness of advertising. Morespecifically, the present invention relates to a system and a method formonitoring and/or measuring effectiveness of advertisements,particularly on-line advertising viewed on a computer of a user of theinternet.

It is, of course, generally known to advertise specific products and/orservices offered by a given company. One form of advertising growing inpopularity is advertising via the internet. Many companies purchase whatare generally known in the industry as “banners” that a consumer may“click” on to reveal additional information about the product and/orservices advertised by the company.

Banners are generally designed to invite and/or incite individuals. toclick on the banner thereby revealing additional information regardingthe products and/or services of the company. However, the impact that abanner has on an individual, such as a consumer who has viewed thebanner, is often difficult to determine or otherwise evaluate. That is,companies currently do not have mechanisms to evaluate the impact that,for example, a banner placed as an on-line advertisement, for example,has on an individual who has viewed the banner and has not necessarily“clicked on” the banner.

The reaction and determination of how consumers react to on-linemarketing in advertising is rather limited and is generally limited toconsumers' behaviors where consumers have “clicked on” theadvertisement. However, a missing piece of data is how people feel aboutor react to what they have seen or how that exposure to what they haveseen has affected their attitude and will motivate them in the future.Particularly, the reaction or influence that an on-line basedadvertisement has on an individual is important to evaluate to determinethe value of the advertisement.

With the increased use of the internet, it can be generally shown thatapproximately one percent (1%) of all banner advertisements arecurrently being “clicked on”. However, information as to why individualsdid not click on the banner or whether the banner has had any effect onthe consumer who did click on the banner have not been addressed.Moreover, information and/or data as to why the ninety percent (90%) ofthe individuals who clicked on the banner did not follow through with apurchase has also not been addressed.

In addition, on-line research is also becoming more and more popular. Infact, in Sep. 17, 1998, Digital Marketing Services published a reportthat indicates that ninety-four percent (94%) of consumers feel thaton-line surveys are more convenient than traditional research methods.Moreover, that same article states that the same people participating intraditional forms of market research are now engaging in on-linesurveys. On-line surveys are also capturing those not willing toparticipate in other more traditional survey methods.

On-line research is becoming more popular, and three main benefits aredriving the increased usage of on-line research. One benefit is thaton-line research is faster, less expensive and more versatile thantraditional market research. Moreover, internet advertising will likelyincrease in importance to advertisers' bottom lines thereby underscoringthe necessity of the evaluation of its effectiveness. Finally,traditional research is experiencing declining response rates andconsumers have indicated that they prefer the on-line method ofresearch.

A need, therefore, exists for providing a system and a method formonitoring and measuring effectiveness of on-line advertising includingmonitoring and measuring the effectiveness of those advertisements,particularly on those individuals who have viewed, for example, abanner, but have not necessarily “clicked on” the banner as compared toindividuals not exposed to the banner or other advertisement.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a system and a method for measuring andmonitoring effectiveness of advertising. More specifically, the presentinvention provides a system and a method for measuring effectiveness ofon-line advertising, particularly measuring the effectiveness ofadvertising which is seen or viewed on a computer of an individual viathe internet.

To this end, in an embodiment, the present invention provides a systemfor measuring effectiveness of an advertisement viewed by a user. Thesystem has a code associated with the advertisement received from anadvertiser. A server is capable of identifying when the advertisement isviewed by the user wherein the code sends a signal to the serverindicative of viewing of the advertisement. A computer on which theadvertisement is viewed by the user has a file on which an indicator isgenerated and the indicator provides information associated with theadvertisement.

In an embodiment, the information includes time at which the user viewedthe advertisement.

In an embodiment, an advertising server is capable of delivering theadvertisement to the computer of the user.

In an embodiment, a plurality of advertising servers are capable ofdelivering an advertisement to the computer of the user wherein each ofthe advertisements includes a code associated with the advertisement.The server is further capable of identifying when the advertisement isviewed by the user.

In an embodiment, the server generates a survey that may be accessed bythe user.

In an embodiment, the survey is dynamically generated based onadvertisements to which the user has been exposed.

In an embodiment, the survey obtains demographic information of theuser. This also causes certain questions to be generated.

In an embodiment, the server includes a plurality of categories in whichthe advertiser may be classified.

In an embodiment, the server generates a survey that may be accessed bythe user wherein results of a plurality of surveys answered by aplurality of users assist in computing the effectiveness of theadvertisement.

In an embodiment, the server receives questions generated by theadvertiser.

In an embodiment, the server receives questions and selected demographicinformation generated by the advertiser.

In an embodiment, the advertiser may access research results.

In another embodiment of the present invention, a method is provided formeasuring effectiveness of an advertisement from an advertiser andviewed by a user. The method comprises the steps of: providing theadvertisement viewable through an on-line network accessible by acomputer of the user; attaching a code to the advertisement; identifyingwhen the advertisement has been viewed by the user; and storinginformation in the computer of the user wherein the information relatesto viewing of the advertisement.

In an embodiment, a survey accessible by the computer of the user isgenerated.

In an embodiment, a survey is dynamically generated to the computer ofthe user based on advertisements to which the user has been exposed.

In an embodiment, survey questions are generated based on informationreceived from the advertisers.

In an embodiment, effectiveness of the advertisement is computed basedon survey results obtained from users exposed to the advertisement andfrom users not exposed to the advertisement.

In another embodiment of the present invention, a system is provided foridentifying when an advertisement viewable through an on-line network bya computer of the user has been viewed by the user. The system has acode attached to the advertisement which is capable of generating asignal when the advertisement is viewed on the computer by the userwherein the code provides information relating to the viewing of theadvertisement. A server receives the signal from the computer of theuser.

In an embodiment, the server generates a signal in response to thesignal wherein the signal includes information related to the viewing ofthe advertisement and is stored on the computer of the user.

In an embodiment, the information includes time at which theadvertisement was viewed by the user.

It is, therefore, an advantage of the present invention to provide asystem and a method for determining effectiveness of an advertisement.

Another advantage of the present invention is to provide a system and amethod for measuring and/or monitoring and/or determining theeffectiveness of an on-line advertisement using, for example, a bannerin the advertising.

A further advantage of the present invention is to provide a system anda method that simply measures and/or monitors the effectiveness of anadvertisement.

A still further advantage of the present invention is to provide asystem and a method that adds code to the advertisement of an on-lineadvertisement that may be stored in a cookie file of a user's computer.

A still further advantage of the present invention is to provide asystem and a method for monitoring and measuring effectiveness of anon-line advertisement that is realistic such that advertisers believethe obtained results.

A still further advantage of the present invention is to provide asystem and a method for measuring and monitoring effectiveness of anon-line advertisement that may simultaneously serve a plurality ofadvertisers.

A still further advantage of the present invention is to provide asystem and a method for monitoring and/or measuring the effectiveness ofa particular advertisement that may be obtained in real time withoutwaiting by the advertiser and that is also flexible to the advertiser.

And, another advantage of the present invention is to provide a systemand a method for monitoring and/or measuring the effectiveness of anon-line advertisement that is easy to implement.

A still further advantage of the present invention is to provide asystem and a method for monitoring and/or measuring the effectiveness ofan on-line advertisement that is not dependent on a single ad serversystem.

Additional features and advantages of the present invention aredescribed in, and will be apparent from, the detailed description of thepresently preferred embodiments and from the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a flowchart of an embodiment of steps of a method ofthe present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart of an embodiment of steps of a method ofthe present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a black box diagram of an embodiment of a system ofthe present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENTLY PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention generally provides a system and a method formeasuring and/or monitoring effectiveness of advertising. Morespecifically, the present invention provides a system and a method formonitoring and/or measuring effectiveness of on-line advertising,particularly measuring effectiveness of individuals who have viewed aparticular advertisement, such as a banner advertisement placed, forexample, on the internet that is advertising goods and/or services of aparticular company versus those who have not viewed the advertisement.

Two types of on-line research categories are generally known-behavioralresearch and attitudinal research. Behavioral research is on-lineresearch that uses server logs and “cookie” data. Cookie data isgenerally known in the art and relates to a file generated on a user'scomputer by a particular web site. As a result, the web site identifiesthe user if the user ever re-accesses the web site at a future time. Thegoal of behavioral research is to attempt to make inferences about whatis driving the behavior of the on-line consumer. Essentially, behavioralresearch identifies and measures where consumers click and what theybuy.

Attitudinal research, on the other hand, is considered a next level ofdetail in on-line research providing psychographic and demographicinformation as to why consumers do what they do and how they feel aboutthe product or process. When combined with behavioral data, attitudinalresearch can measure where consumers clicked and how they felt aboutwhat they saw, how the images impacted them, whether the exposure to theon-line marketing changed their likelihood to purchase, and what maymotivate them to do or buy on-line in the future.

The most common on-line marketing process is to place a banner across aparticular web site to draw traffic to another web site, or hopefully,incite a transaction at that second web site. For example, Company A mayplace a banner advertisement on Company B's web site touting itsparticular product or service or specific prices or rates that Company Aoffers. After clicking on the banner advertisement of Company A, thepresumably interested consumer may be taken to the web site of Company Awhere he or she may sign up to receive the particular product or serviceof Company A. However, only about one percent of all banneradvertisements are clicked on by consumers or other individuals viewingthe advertisements. Nonetheless, that advertisement, even if not clickedon, may have an impact on or leave an impression on a consumer that isdifficult to monitor or evaluate.

The present invention provides companies with mechanisms to evaluate theimpact of their particular advertisements, such as a banneradvertisement placed on, for example, the internet. Such questions thatcan be answered are the brand awareness that an advertisement brings toa particular consumer or individual viewing the advertisement, the brandattributes or messages that may be recalled by a consumer or individualthat views the advertisement as well as the likelihood to purchaseand/or use the goods or services that were advertised by a particularcompany.

To this end, the present invention provides a survey with questions fedinto a pool of questions on an as-needed basis. Multiple advertisers maybe able to use the survey to obtain data on the effectiveness of thatadvertiser's on-line banner advertising campaign. For example, a few keyquestions may be generated by the survey that may then be posed tohundreds of respondents.

The respondents are divided into two groups, namely an exposed group anda control group. The exposed group consists of individuals' internetprotocol (IP) addresses that, according to “cookie data” stored in thecomputer of the individual, have been exposed to a particular banner ofthe advertiser. The control group, on the other hand, consists ofindividuals who, according to “cookie data”, have not been exposed tothe banner of the particular advertiser. Exposure requires that thebanner advertisement is seen on the computer of the individual at somepoint. If the advertisement is never accessed on the computer of theindividual, then that individual is part of the control group as thatindividual has never been exposed to the advertisement. A statisticallyrelevant number of individuals may then be surveyed in both the controlgroup and the exposed group for comparative purposes.

The survey may be based on standard market research practices. Thesurvey may bring together disparate elements and leverage the strengthsof both an on-line research company with an on-line media network. Thekey is leveraging the “cookie data” and identifying that while oneindividual may be in the exposed group for one particular advertiser asa result of that individual viewing that advertiser's banneradvertisement, for example, that same individual likely may be in thecontrol group for many other advertisers. Therefore, one respondent canfulfill multiple functions in one survey without necessarily impactingthe results of the survey.

By the present invention, a respondent is identified as part of acontrol group or exposed group by attachment of a code to for example,an advertising banner placed on-line by an advertiser. The code is“hidden” on the banner and, preferably, can not be seen by individualsviewing the banner. Preferably, the code is an html format but othercodes may also be implemented by those skilled in the art. However, eachtime a banner advertisement appears having the code on a computer of anindividual, a server may be activated by the code. The server delivers asignal, i.e. a “cookie”, to the personal computer of the user who hasviewed the banner. In addition, an invisible pixel is placed on thebanner as a response to the request. Through use of the code attached tothe banner advertisement, the server may document every time theadvertisement has been seen as well as the time at which theadvertisement was seen by a particular user on the computer of the user.Of course, other information may also be incorporated into thedocumented code. This information is known as “exposure data” and isstored on the personal computer of the user or consumer and is notnecessarily stored in the advertising server data base, for example.

On web site pages, for example, on which a banner advertisement appears,a server banner may also be placed recruiting individuals to take partin a survey. Typically, such surveys may require incentives in order toencourage participants. Such incentives may be modified and/or changedas is necessary. When an individual takes the survey, the server mayview the cookie file of the computer which the survey participant isusing to identify any exposure data on that computer. The server maythen select questions for each survey participant based on what exposuredata is incorporated or identified in the computer, for example, of thesurvey participant as well as any demographic profile input by theparticipant. Accordingly, questions may be dynamically generated by analgorithm that is designed and programmed to insert a higher level ofpriority questions over lower priority questions based on the exposuredata and/or the demographic profile of the individual and/or the cookiedata in the computer of the individual and/or the demographicinformation of the user, for example.

Within the survey, questions and stimuli may be rotated to eliminateorder bias associated with traditional surveys. That is, for example,often the first item in a list of items is more likely to be identifiedas a response to a survey question because of its location in the list.If the questions and the order of the list are, for example, rotated,such bias normally associated with surveys can be substantiallyeliminated.

Moreover, a control panel may be implemented to allow the system toself-regulate so that as quotas are reached for specific items, thequestions may be removed. At any time during the process, advertisersmay log in and obtain results of the survey for their own review anddetermination with respect to the efficiency of the banner advertisementwhich advertisers placed, for example.

Referring to FIGS. 1-3, FIG. 1 generally illustrates the steps necessaryto identify whether a respondent is a controlled user or an exposeduser.

To this end, a first step requires the placement of a code directlyassociated with an advertisement. The code is invisible with respect tothe advertisement, but, in certain applications, the code may also bemade visible. The application of the code to the advertisement isgenerally shown in FIG. 1 at step 10. When an advertisement is opened ordelivered, the code in the advertisement applied in step 10 may beactivated and subsequently identified in step 12. A signal may be sentat step 14 to a server and/or to a database. A cookie may be created ona user's hard drive as shown in step 16 identifying both theadvertisement which was opened by the user and a time at which theadvertisement was viewed.

As a result of the foregoing steps, when an advertisement is deliveredby, for example, advertising server software, the code, such as htmlcode, attached to a banner advertisement sends a call or “ping” to aserver and/or a data base. The server and/or database may write a cookieon that user's hard drive of his computer in the user's cookie file. Thecookie writes an identification that pertains to the banner to which theuser was exposed and creates a log on that user's machine that the usersaw a specific advertisement at a specific time. Accordingly, users are“marked” as having seen certain advertisements.

Simultaneously, a separate process may occur as generally shown in FIG.2. A user must first elect to respond to, for example, an on-line surveyas identified at step 100 in FIG. 2. If the user elects to respond to asurvey, cookies in the hard drive of the computer of that user may beread as identified at step 102. As indicated at step 104, adetermination is made as to which advertisements the user has beenexposed to, and at step 106, questions may be dynamically generated forthat particular user based on advertisements that the user has beenexposed to as determined in step 104.

Alternatively, if a user elects to respond to a survey as shown at step100, demographic profiles of that user or users may be obtained as shownat step 108. Cookies may also be read in the hard drive of the computerof the user at which point a determination may be made as to whichadvertisements have been read by the particular user as indicated atstep 110. Subsequently at step 112, a set of control questions may begenerated based on the demographic profile input by the user and thespecific advertisements that have been read by that user. Accordingly,the system and the method of the present invention conducts on-lineresearch to help businesses that use on-line advertising to analyze theeffectiveness of their on-line business strategies and advertisements.The on-line research gathers attitudinal data from a target audience ofan advertiser, and that data may be augmented with behavioral data tocreate a richer and more insightful analysis. The target audience may bepre-determined by selected demographic information input by theadvertiser identifying demographic requirements of the surveyparticipant.

The survey generation algorithm of the present invention is, therefore,created to form a questionnaire or survey including evaluation questionsfor a banner advertisement campaign in a manner that fills up requestedquotas for a “control” and an “exposed” number of participants in anoptimal way. The data that may be used in the algorithm includes, foreach banner, the requested number of participants who have not seen thebanner (control group size), and for each banner, the requested numberof participants who have been exposed to the banner (exposed groupsize). In addition, for each banner, the current count of participantswho answer the questions and who have not seen the banner (control groupcount), and for each banner, the current count of participants whoanswer the questions and who have been exposed to the banner (exposedgroup count). Further, for each banner, the beginning and end dates ofthe campaign and a “priority” indicator may be provided as data for thealgorithm. Preferably, the priority indicator is assigned a valuebetween zero and five. For each banner, the demographic requirement isnecessary to be defined for targeting specific participants, and a listof e-mails of the people who participated as control or exposed may alsobe required. Further, for the participants, a list of banners that theparticipants were exposed to, the date and time of that exposure, andthe demographics provided by the participants at a time of registrationis generally necessary data for the algorithm. This information may benecessary for the algorithm to use this data to compute statisticallyrelevant results.

The algorithm is designed such that if the participant is attempting totake the survey and has not been exposed to any of the banners, theparticipant is not qualified and may not be admitted to the survey.However, for any banner the participant has been exposed to, theparticipant is counted in the exposed group. For any number of exposed,the algorithm attempts to match one banner to be counted as part of thecontrol group. To find “control” pages within the questionnaire orsurvey, demographic requirements preferably must match that submitted bythe advertiser's demographics requirements. Priority may be given if sorequired; however, as the end of the time frame for the campaign for thebanner advertising closes, or if the quota is lacking, then certainparticipants may be acceptable in order to establish and meet desiredquotas for control and/or exposed groups.

FIG. 3 generally illustrates components of a system 200 of the presentinvention. A single user is illustrated by a computer 202 having acookie file 204 associated with a hard drive of the computer 202. Aserver 205 is capable of generating a signal, “cookie data”, in thecookie file 204 of the computer 202 in response to an advertisement sentto the computer 202 from one or more advertising servers 206,208.Although only two advertising servers 206,208 are illustrated, anynumber of advertising servers may be included in the system 200 of thepresent invention.

In addition, advertisers 210,212 and 214 are illustrated in FIG. 3. Eachof the advertisers 210,212 and 214 may be associated with one or more ofthe advertising servers 206 and/or 208. The advertisers 210, 212 and 214provide advertisements, such as banners, to the advertisement servers206 and/or 208 for subsequent display on any one or more of a pluralityof computers, such as the computer 202. The advertisers 210, 212 and 214may also access and selectively communicate with the server 205 togenerate survey questions and pre-determined demographic profiles fortheir survey respondents. As shown, the advertiser 210 is associatedwith the advertising server 206; the advertiser 212 is associated withboth the advertising servers 206 and 208; and the advertising 214 isassociated with the advertising server 208. Of course, the advertisers210, 212 and 214 may be associated with either one or more of theadvertising servers 206 and/or 208 or other advertising servers notillustrated in FIG. 3. Further, only three advertisers are illustrated;however, it should be understood that any number of advertisers may beincluded in the system 200 of the present invention and may associatewith any one or more advertising servers.

As a result, the primary application of the present invention ismeasurement and evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of on-lineadvertising. A second application replaces traditional forms of marketresearch on any topic. For example, the system may interview certainprofessionals about certain aspects occurring within those professions.In such an instance, the internet is not the topic of the research, butmerely the vehicle for conducting it quickly, cost-effectively, andglobally.

The on-line survey feature of the present invention is capable ofhandling multiple projects and thousands of respondents simultaneously.This feature administers surveys and is the central repository for allof the respondent or user information. As a result, custom research maybe achieved wherein flexible on-line market research services may betailored to a certain advertiser's specific objectives, such as creativetesting and research services. Further, shared research may also beachieved using a continuously running, multi-advertiser methodology inwhich many advertisers share costs associated with one large surveysample. For example, the present invention provides a cost-effectiveresearch application that empowers advertising-supported websites/networks to quantify the branding impact of their banneradvertising, for example, and helps demonstrate value to thosecompanies, for example, that advertise goods and/or services through theinternet. The present invention is further capable of demonstrating thevalue of a particular advertisement beyond “click-through” and theinformation generated by individuals that have clicked-through thebanner of the advertisement in question.

Finally, tracking research is also achieved by the present invention byregularly scheduled research projects that may be front loaded andeasily replicated for on-going measurements and/or monitoring thereof.The results of a survey may be obtainable by an advertiser through a webpage where the advertiser may log in and see the results of the surveyand subsequent research. Typical research results provided to anadvertiser may include a “banner-aided awareness” of the user, an“intent to purchase” of the user as a result of viewing of the banner,and “message recall” of the user as a result of viewing of the banner.Results may be tabulated for both an exposed group of users and acontrol group of users, and the impact of the exposed group versus thecontrol group may be tabulated. An impact quotient may also becalculated. For example, if the percents of aided awareness, forexample, between the exposed group and the control group are the same,the impact quotient is one. This is statistically significant at aninety-five percent confidence level. Such information may be extremelyhelpful when assessing a specific impact of a campaign and itseffectiveness.

Not only is information with respect to the advertiser's banner campaignpossible, the advertiser may also obtain a “brand name impact” quotientwhich may be used as a norm by which the advertiser may compare andtrack the effectiveness of campaigns in the future. Preferably, a surveybanner may be placed into automatic rotation after the banner of theadvertiser is served. This ensures that a sizeable exposed group foreach particular advertiser with a banner occurs. A survey banner may beplaced on the advertising network without any targeting specification.This may likely result in some exposed respondents for selected bannercampaigns but may also ensure a sizeable amount of control respondents.

As a respondent or user moves from the network and into the survey,cookie data from the advertising network is transferred. The data basemay be read to obtain the cookie data and determine what banners towhich they have been exposed. This prompts the data base to gatherexposed questions and present those questions. To this end, a respondentmay first fill out a basic demographic form at the beginning of thesurvey. When that data is submitted, the data base prompts controlquestions for presentation. The data base thereby maximizes theefficiency of each respondent.

As an example, assume a respondent is exposed to an “Alpha Airlines”banner advertisement. First, cookie data may be recorded with respect tothat information, and those respondents can be assigned as part of anexposed group. If, for example, the Alpha Airlines banner does not showup in that person's cookie data, then those individuals are assigned asthe Alpha Airlines “control” group provided those individuals match thedemographics of the target audience pre-selected by Alpha Airlines, ifdesired. Alpha Airlines may then want to know if the banner has impacteda respondent's “top-of-mind-awareness” of travel services so questionsmay include, for example: “From the following list, please pick the topthree companies that you would consider using for business travelbetween Boston and New York.” Other questions may be geared towards thegauging of a consumer's sense of brand attributes or positioningstatements of Alpha Airlines, for example.

Lastly, Alpha Airlines may want a question about the likelihood of theconsumer to purchase Alpha Airline's services. These questions may beseparated so that the presence of subsequent questions of Alpha Airlinesdo not harm the integrity of the first set of “blind top-of-mind”questions. Each advertiser may generate a predetermined set of questionsthat are necessary to obtain answers to important branding questions.The survey may also contain demographic questions about respondents sothat advertisers can obtain that data if requested, for example.

For example, Alpha Airlines may be able to get demographic datadetailing the demographic information of a representative sample ofpeople exposed to the Alpha Airlines' banners. The data may be collectedand cross-tabulated to create two cells: exposed and control. Theexposed cell may consist of a predetermined number of respondents whohave been exposed to a specific banner tested. The control cell mayconsist of a predetermined number of respondents who match the basicdemographics but have not been exposed to a specific banner. Theserespondents may be matched according to the key targeting criteria andcomparative criteria between the exposed cell and the control cell maybe generated. An advertiser, such as in this case, Alpha Airlines, mayview the results of the search and obtain answers to their specificquestions. Data may be logged to a custom page in real time andpreferably, three columns may be provided: exposed, control, and impactrating. By comparing percentages of respondents between the exposed andthe control groups, a number which details the relative impact of thatbanner may be calculated on an exposed audience. In the“top-of-mind-awareness” category, for example, an impact value of 1.26means that the exposed group's citation of Alpha Airlines was twenty-sixpercent higher than that of the control group's citation. This will giveadvertisers, such as advertisers like Alpha Airlines, a sense of howbanners are doing attitudinally not just via “click through.”

The metric used to calculate the impact of a particular banneradvertisement compares the attitudes of the control and exposed groups.Each segment is asked a question regarding their opinion on a particulartopic. For example, the survey may ask which airline a participant wouldfly if the participant was to purchase a plane ticket in the nearfuture. The percentage of individuals who indicate that they would buythe advertiser's product is the attitudinal yield. By comparing theattitudinal yield of those who saw the banner against those who did not,the impact of the advertisement can be computed by calculating therelative difference:C.yield=Attitudinal yield for control cellE.yield=Attitudinal yield for exposed cellImpact=(C.Yield−E.Yield)/C.yieldFor example, assume a banner advertisement campaign launches, and theC.yield for a likelihood to purchase question is 15%. Further, assumethat the exposed cell generates an attitudinal yield of 20%.The impact may be computed as follows:(20%−15%)/15%=33%.The conclusion that may be drawn from this is that the banneradvertisement increased likelihood to purchase by 33%.

It should be understood that various changes and modifications to thepresently preferred embodiments described herein will be apparent tothose skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications may be madewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention andwithout diminishing its attendant advantages. It is, therefore, intendedthat such changes and modifications be covered by the appended claims.

1. A system for facilitating measuring effectiveness of advertisementsdisplayed upon a computer for viewing by a user through on-line surveys,the system comprising: an on-line advertisement, issued by anadvertising server, including a code embedded within executableinstructions; a user computer for receiving and executing the on-lineadvertisement, including the code; a server, separate and distinct fromthe advertising server, that supplies an indicator to the user computerfor identifying an instance of the on-line advertisement being executedon the user computer, wherein the user computer includes a repositorywithin which the indicator is stored, the indicator providinginformation associated with the on-line advertisement executed on theuser computer; and an on-line survey provider that provides a survey tothe user computer and evaluates survey responses in accordance withprevious exposure to on-line advertisements indicated by contents of therepository.
 2. The system of claim 1 wherein the information includes atime at which the advertisement is executed on the user computer.
 3. Thesystem of claim 1 wherein the repository is a file.
 4. The system ofclaim 3 wherein the file is a cookie file.
 5. The system of claim 1wherein the server generates a survey accessible to a user of the usercomputer wherein results of a plurality of surveys answered by aplurality of users on a plurality of user computers facilitate computingeffectiveness of the on-line advertisement.
 6. The system of claim 1wherein the server includes an interface for receiving questionsgenerated by a source of the on-line advertisement.
 7. The system ofclaim 1 wherein the server includes an interface for receiving questionsand selected demographic information in association with the on-lineadvertisement.